


The Good, the Bad, and the Lying

by OpheliasRosemary (Baezetsu)



Series: Glory Verse [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, F/M, Gen, Sakura's way in over her head, Superheroes, Superpowers, Supervillains
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-10 00:47:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14726798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baezetsu/pseuds/OpheliasRosemary
Summary: A collection of drabbles centered on an AU where everyone is either a superhero or villain. Sakura-centric





	1. Destroy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aprito](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aprito/gifts).



> I know I said I wasn't doing anything else for this verse, but I've been sitting on a couple drabbles and why not get at least one or two out? These are much darker than the previous work, but I'll try and add a few slice of life things here and there. I'm gifting this to Aprito because they've been very supportive of the first one-shot, and recommended me, and I know they want a supervillain verse so this is...what I can give, lol.

Destruction. Three syllables that encapsulate total collapse, ruin. When I close my eyes all I can see is…

How I…

_Destroy._

It’s ironic considering all I’ve ever wanted to do is heal. And I learned, after many years, all while pretending to learn how to destroy with those same skills I always wanted.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m super proud of being able to help the sick – even when using techniques made for the opposite. But naturally nothing comes easy as…

 **Pounding through walls, buildings, people** … all crumble because I’m just that strong and _ican’thelpitiwasbornthisway._

When people find out I’m one of the genetically ‘lucky’, blessed to have a power due to the genetic lottery, super strength is not what they expect. I’m small, I have natural pink hair – one of the few mutations I carry that show the presence of something _more_ in me, and I’ve never been one of those girls with a _presence_. I’m not a shrinking violet anymore, but commanding attention has always been an actual chore for me – unless in class. I was always the teacher’s pet sort of person, forgettable in everything else.

That is until someone sees me punch things.

Most people grow scared of me – especially civilians. I don’t have a precise-type power, so being able to rip telephone poles out of the ground often means that other things will fall. Others are in awe, especially kids. This is the stuff I like best, being surrounded by children with stars in their eyes. They ask me how I got so strong and I just wink and tell them to eat nutritious meals (a public health service, I am a medical professional in-training, duh).

But no one’s ever reacted like Sasori.

Even the villians – with their calculations as they re-evaluate me. I always feel a shiver in my spine because I can’t fathom how they think of me, what they want to use me for now – always something new. They see the power, not me. It's like a puzzle but with the last piece in place, I'm eclipsed - reduced down to super strength. 

Not Sasori.

It’s lucky I got a glimpse of it through the dust and shock-settling in on me (losing control like that!) – he looked… blown away. In bliss. I’ve never seen anyone look at like that. It’s not the awe children have, not fear, not even some strange scheming. I'd call that expression obscene on anyone but him.

Sasori has that look on his face every time he sees something he thinks is beautiful.

For an evil mastermind, he’s super expressive. I just won’t tell him this because he’ll make me mop the floor and polish all the puppets and probably sort out his mail again, and he broke our last shredder so it’d have to be by hand. Not fun stuff, you know?

Besides, even if it’s not from someone remotely sane and not a terrorist, it kind of feels…nice. I mean I’m on the same level as a 18th century vase he just _had_ to steal from a museum, but yeah. Nice.

...There’s not lots of choices for flattery when you’re a heroine deep undercover as a villain, okay? 


	2. Atlas the Beauty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't even know if Sasori likes her non-platonically at this point, I'm just confused as y'all.

“How much longer?” There’s an edge of whining to her question, but he can see she hasn’t even broken a sweat, ignoring that there’s around half-a-ton that should be weighing her down.

Sasori adjusts the tripod, not meeting her expectant gaze. He had this all planned out in his mind – loosely test her strength and preserve it in a non-lethal manner by means of photography. He even brought in old backdrops he hadn’t touched in decades, heck, Sasori had even coerced the girl into wearing a white, frilled dress just for this.

The contrast between her flat open palm easily lifting an anvil marked as a half-ton and that wide-browed ingenue face with large green eyes, almost doe-like with how they blinked at him in uncertainty…

This was art. _She was art_.

Nature had created a paradox and he was only the faithful man documenting it.

Of course, this was a momentary distraction, soon they’d return to their normal activities of monitoring a local dam they’d hidden caches of poison in (to frame Orochimaru), but for now Sasori just wanted to see her… bend.

However many tons of objects it took for her to lift, he _needed_ to catch that moment where her unscathed knees would finally shake into one another. He wanted to grab that instant in which she would inhale and reach for that final reserve of strength and conquer all that was weighing her down, Atlas as a living beauty.


	3. Glory

Cyan eyes find her own for the first time in years and Sakura wants to do nothing but reach out for him.

But all she does is look back coldly, less expressive than she generally is during missions with Sasori.

“S-sakura?” Naruto’s here, adorned in bright neon orange _glory_ , the hero she always knew he’d be. But this isn’t some small-town criminal, not some weirdo-of-the-week Naruto would have seen in Leaf-town.

This is the Scorpion and Sakura just wants to tell him to run away because Naruto won’t defeat Sasori, _can’t_ defeat him.

Forget about being out of his league – Sakura won’t let him. She can’t, she has to do this, be under this strange, brilliant, completely morally repugnant man so she can bring Sasuke home. So she can shatter Orochimaru and all his colleagues one by one.

Sasori is her ticket to that and while she can still use him, she will.

“Sakura-chan!” He yells louder, speeding up. “What- why you with a guy like him? Why’d you disappear? I thought you were gonna be… a hero, before you disappeared years ago!” Sakura resists a flinch, resists yelling back, _“I AM! I AM!”_ because even when she destroys everything she only dreams of repairing the world.

Sasori finally takes notice. The look he gives her is contemplating, and for once Sakura feels that chill she tends to get from villains staring her down. It’s not the look he gives his _art_.

“Face from the past, girl?”

Sakura’s jaw tightens as her eyes narrow down at Naruto.

“An unwelcome one.”

“He’s in the way, dispose of him.” Sasori puts it succinctly before leaping down and Sakura’s heart drops with him. She’s tried to avoid killing so far, mostly successful, but it’s been mostly other villains in their way so far. But…Naruto.

Her best friend from childhood. Annoying, idealistic, sun-incarnate Naruto.

A tanned hand reaches out for her and she grasps it by the wrist. For a moment Naruto looks sure that she won’t do it, that’s she’s still the girl who’d drag encyclopedias onto the playground and try to teach him since he didn’t bother attending class.

Instead all he gets is a broken wrist.

Naruto’s screams fill the warehouse, making Sakura wince out of pain – _WHO IS SHE? WHO IS SHE ANYMORE?_ \- and from the knowledge that he can’t be here alone, that someone who poses a real fucking threat (blue mask, silver hair) isn’t far away and she has to end this quick. Holding on tight to his wrist, she lunges down, jumping off the walkway and into another level of the warehouse. He’s dragged with her, like she’s carrying a ragdoll – she might have dislocated his arm doing that since the screaming gets worse, and so easily flings Naruto out of the warehouse – just some orange speck in the distance now.

He’ll live – she knows him, his powers, but the screams still stick.

“That’s the thing about heroes,” Sakura says, landing gracefully beside Sasori, who looks way too amused with the entire situation. “They’re always out trying to save the wrong people.”

Sasori snorts. “I don’t think you’d ever need saving, Sakura.”

Oh, how Sakura wishes she did.


End file.
